Summary

Gen Z’s reputation as a reliably progressive generation has been challenged by recent U.S. election results, showing a noticeable shift toward conservative voting, particularly among young men.

Many young people struggle with financial security, psychological safety, and optimism about the future. Trump tapped into their anxieties of a frightening world that’s worsening.

Issues like inflation, financial stability, and safety now rank higher than traditional progressive causes for many young people.

Additionally, conservative influences from figures like Joe Rogan and family ties to Gen X parents may have nudged Gen Z rightward, reflecting their complex and evolving priorities.

  • Jaderick@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Trump tapped into their anxieties of a frightening world that’s worsening

    No reflection on how Trump exponentially makes that worse?

    So they’re stupider than we thought. Nice.

    Edit: at least the ones that vote

    • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Not voting has the same consequences, so those aren’t too smart either.

      Gen Z are entitled like boomers, but with almost no economic prospects outside their parents.

      Which makes sense, since loads of Gen Z were priced out of a future before they could even start earning, so there’s no point in giving effort

      At least Trump will guarantee Gen Z nearly unlimited well paying work if they’re interested in bounty hunting immigrants and tracking fertility

      • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        GenZ is the generation raised by helicopter parents, whose late-Boomer-to-early-GenX parents went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they never faced any challenges. Of course they’d have some odd ideas about how the world ought to work, after spending their entire childhood and early adulthood with Mom and Dad working strenuously to shield them from personal struggles, emotional distress, and the consequences of their actions. What remains to be seen is how those attitudes shift as the rubber hits the road and their parents lose the ability to protect them from the increasingly dire state of the world. I suspect it’ll be an even three-way split between blithe entitlement, despair and withdrawal, and an impulse to step up and do something about it.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          GenZ is the generation raised by helicopter parents, whose late-Boomer-to-early-GenX parents went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they never faced any challenges.

          Weren’t the same kinds of things aimed at kids raised by Dr. Spock? In other words, the boomers?

      • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        You joke, but … fore many white men these job prospects (cop, immigration office, jail guard) are a reality. The factories have all moved away. If you’re a contractor, doing roofing or painting for example, you’re competing against illegal immigrants that work under the table.

    • very_well_lost@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld:

      You don’t run for president with the voters you want, you run for president with the voters you have.

      Stupid or not, these are the voters we have, and Democrats need to learn how to reach at least some of them if they ever want to win another election.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Only a small portion of GenZ was incentivized to show up this election. Interpreting the fact that only right wing GenZ showed up shouldn’t be treated as a condemnation of a generation. White women didn’t show up for Harris either. Would we make the same condemnation?

    It all comes down to the fact that Democrats offered little and less in the four years where they could have accomplished something, and when called out for that, those critical were told to shut the fuck up.

    What the Democrats offered was right wing politics: their base won’t vote for it. Which isn’t to say that groups like GenZ or women won’t show up if you actually offer them something they want to vote for.

    This loss can be dropped squarely on the shoulders of the deeply toxic “Blue No Matter Who/ Blue MAGA/ You can’t be critical of Democrats because you only have two choices” philosophy. It was seriously at work here on Lemmy, and moderation and prominent posters here (and across the internet) did real damage filtering down forums like c/Politics, r/Poltiics, etc to select for a narrow and now very proven wrong approach to electoralism.

  • mhague@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Well nobody could be different from us. Nobody could be wired differently. If they vote for Nazi policy then they must be confused and in need of correcting. It’s impossible for bad people to exist, they’re all just sheep that need shepherding.

    Maybe if everything is fixed and the world is perfect and our country is perfect it will fix things? Maybe the Nazis go away?

    Anything to avoid facing reality and getting our hands dirty removing Nazis from our country.